Who was the ‘real’ Tony Soprano? Here are three possibilities – NorthJersey.com
Will the real Tony Soprano please stand up?
Or stand down. Whichever applies.
Is it contestant number one: Vincent “Vinny Ocean” Palermo, a Long Island mobster with ties to New Jersey, who ran a strip club similar to the Bada Bing?
Or number two: Simone Rizzo DeCavalcante — alias “Sam the Plumber” — who lived in upscale digs near Princeton?
Or is it Anthony “Tony Boy” Boiardo, a Newark mob boss who lived in Essex Fells and was known to visit a therapist?
Tony’s return to the pop culture spotlight — albeit as a younger version of himself (Michael Gandolfini) — in the much anticipated big-screen “Sopranos” prequel “The Many Saints of Newark,” opening Friday in theaters and on HBO Max, has led some viewers back to a foundational question.
Many details of David Chase’s black-comic Mafia series were real. There were characters based on actual people: Hesh Rabkin was based on Roulette Records founder “Mo” Levy; Vito Spatafore, whacked after he was found at a gay nightclub, was based on the similarly unlucky John D’Amato. There were real Jersey locations: Kearny, Lodi, Harrison, Bloomfield, Belleville, Newark, West Orange, Montclair, North Caldwell, Paterson, Wayne and Asbury Park.
Surely, then, there must have been a real Tony Soprano. But who was he? Where was he from?
“This show is drawing from a super-rich history,” said Jon Blackwell, author of “Notorious New Jersey: 100 True Tales of Murder and Mobsters, Scandals and Scoundrels.”
What town wouldn’t want to claim New Jersey’s most famous mobster? Just as Asbury Park and Freehold vie for Bruce Springsteen, and Salzburg and Vienna can lay equal claim to Mozart, so many a community would be proud to have Tony Soprano as its favorite son.
“People want to say he’s from our town,” said Scott M. Deitche, author of “Garden State Gangland: The Rise of the Mob in New Jersey.” “Tony Soprano became such a popular pop culture reference point, instantly recognizable. There are people who view the mob stuff with a little bit of pride.”
But what town can make the best case? Who was Tony Soprano? Let’s meet our contestants.
Anthony ‘Tony Boy’ Boiardo (1918 to 1978).
He came from mob royalty. He was the son of the legendary Ruggiero “Richie the Boot” Boiardo, who apparently got his nickname from stomping people to death. A member of the Genovese crime family, he worked his Newark beat during the day, and returned at night to a suburban home in Essex Fells, near Montclair. He had a lieutenant named John “Big Pussy” Russo, not in the least reminiscent of the “Sopranos’ ” Salvatore “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero (Vincent Pastore).
Like Tony Soprano, he went to a therapist on the down-low — such a trait would not do his reputation any good. (He wasn’t the first: Mobster Frank Costello also went to a shrink, in the 1940s.) He was a bit beefy. And he was named Tony. Ring any bells?
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“David Chase, who created ‘The Sopranos,’ grew up with the Boiardos,” said Richard Linnett, author of “In the Godfather Garden: The Long Life and Times of Richie ‘the Boot’ Boiardo.”
“They operated in his neighborhood,” Linnett said. “He grew up in North Caldwell, next door to Essex Fells.”
If anybody was a model for Tony Soprano, it was “Tony Boy,” Linnett said. “By 1958, Richie had retired and handed everything to Tony,” he said. “In those pivotal years, he was known as the guy who ran Newark.”
True, there were some differences. Tony Boiardo’s shrink was male.
“We know the therapist’s name,” Linnett said. “It was a a guy. It wasn’t a beautiful lady.”
Also, Tony B., unlike Tony S., was not popular with his fellow mobsters.
“His father was the real power because he was respected,” Linnett said. “Tony was not. He screwed up the numbers-running operation Richie had going, and he did a few messy hits. He was inconsistent, and his father had to rein him in quite a bit. The other mobsters didn’t trust him.”
Simone Rizzo DeCavalcante (1912-1997)
“Sam the Plumber” got his nickname from the plumbing supply business he ran as a front in Kenilworth. Lead pipe came in handy for his real business, which was gambling, loansharking, labor racketeering and extortion. DeCavalcante, also known as “The Count,” was the star subject of the famous FBI “Valachi” tapes, and eventually went to prison for 15 years.
Like Tony Soprano, he based his operations in Newark, but he, too, had a country seat — in Lawrenceville, about 5 miles south of Princeton, the home of the posh Lawrenceville Preparatory School. Apparently, he liked that college atmosphere.
“Sam would hang around his little plumbing store in Kenilworth, just like the guys in ‘The Sopranos’ hung out in the back of Satriale’s, shooting the [breeze],” Deitche said. “He puts on the air of being a respectable businessman. He has the fur coat on with the ascot, he’s dressed to the nines, and he has the suburban home and family.”
Like Tony Soprano, he was respected. His DeCavalcante crime family brought a bit of gravitas to the Jersey mob, mostly viewed as hicks by the metropolitan crowd.
“The farmers,” the New Yorkers called them (“The Sopranos” touched on this).
“He kind of brought up the visibility of New Jersey families,” Deitche said.
Vincent ‘Vinny Ocean’ Palermo (born 1944)
“Vinny Ocean” is still, happily, with us. Though a resident of Nassau County, he was a boss of the same DeCavalcante crime family of New Jersey with which “Sam the Plumber” was affiliated (he married Sam’s niece) and ran a strip club called Wiggles, in Forest Hills, Queens, that is said to be the inspiration for the Bada Bing.
He was also alleged to have ties to the 1992 murder of John D’Amato, whose girlfriend ratted him out for having encounters with men at Manhattan sex clubs.
“Nobody’s gonna respect us if we have a gay homosexual boss sitting down discussing La Cosa Nostra business,” button-man Anthony Capo testified in 2003 — one of several real-life story arcs “The Sopranos” borrowed.
“Vinny Ocean,” who got his nickname from his days working at the Fulton Fish Market, is said to be genuinely fond of children, a dedicated family man, known for watching the movie “Annie” over and over with one of his daughters.
“I think I would probably go with the idea of Vinny Palermo being the inspiration,” said Patricia A. Martinelli, author of “True Crime: New Jersey: The State’s Most Notorious Criminal Cases.”
“His roots were so traditional,” she said. “He managed to be a behind-the-scenes guy for many years, as far as the government was concerned. That was always one of the Mafia traits. True leadership kept a very low profile. You could make a good case for him being the role model for the Tony Soprano character.”
Or, you could just say that there is no one Tony Soprano. That “Sopranos” creator David Chase simply took traits from all of these characters, blended them together and added a soupçon of his own genius.
But what fun is that?
“He’s inventing his own personality, but he’s drawing from real people,” Blackwell said. “There’s history oozing out of ‘The Sopranos,’ whether it’s the Newark riots, or the New York mobsters looking down on the New Jersey mobsters, or the political corruption. And he’s populating the show with some of the more interesting figures he grew up with.”
Jim Beckerman is an entertainment and culture reporter for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to his insightful reports about how you spend your leisure time, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
Email: beckerman@northjersey.com
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